


Cupboard Kisses

by sansalannistark



Category: Ackley Bridge (TV)
Genre: Angst, But mostly SO much fluff, Cupboard Encounters, F/F, Fluff, Kissing, Romance, Teachers Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15253992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansalannistark/pseuds/sansalannistark
Summary: Emma can't take this grief anymore; Mandy wants to make her happy in the one way she thinks she can.





	Cupboard Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> First AB fanfiction, which I'm excited about! And for the fluffly-as-fuck ship that is Emmandy - thank you to @emmandy (tumblr)/ @ackleybridge (ao3) for introducing me to it!

It is almost seven at night, but Emma Keane is far from done crying for the day.

 

It’s not just Sami’s sudden death that has brought about the pit of grief and tears she has found herself in these past weeks, but some older, far sharper wounds still. While she hurts from losing the man she loved for so long, what makes it so much worse is losing the woman she has loved even before that. Mandy is her best friend, when she isn’t being  _ Miss Carter _ , the strict, yet abrasive headmistress of the school, but more than that, Mandy is her light. If she had to think about it, Emma would guess her feelings for her friend started at university, when she was young and confused about her sexuality, but when she knew that what she felt for her best friend was not friendship; Emma knew enough to know that wanting to find out whether her lips tasted like apples was far from platonic, and wholly beyond the boundaries of their friendship.

 

It doesn’t matter that she never did anything about it - she grew up, Mandy grew up and they both moved on. They had boyfriends, and girlfriends and many kinds of  _ friends _ , but the two of them were never more than the first kind. Now, Emma thinks, loneliness might drive her to act on her feelings (which seems like such an inadequate word for how much she loves Mandy - she is an English teacher after all. Shouldn't she be able to think of something more eloquent?). With a sigh, she rubs her wet cheeks with one hand; Mandy has Steve, and they’re good together, better than most couples, even with Steve’s ex and their affairs. They make it  _ work. _ She and Mandy never could.

 

Emma is halfway through deciding if she’ll just hole up here for the night and have done with it. She’s a mess anyway, one night in a cupboard crying won’t change anything, but before she can decide, there’s a creak and the door swings open. In the darkness, it’s hard to see much but her head jumps up to meet a pair of familiar blue eyes, as familiar to her as the wilting flowers growing in her front garden and she feels her breath stutter.

 

“Emma?” Mandy murmurs, hovering in the doorway. There’s a shaft of outside light filtering through the window and it hits Mandy’s face and Emma wants to cry again, because she’s an emotional wreck and life seems to want to taunt her with everything she cannot have.

 

“Em,” she repeats, softer now, “What’s up?” Not, ‘Why are you here at seven o’clock?’, not ‘What on earth are you doing?’. Just her name, just ‘Em’, like back in the old days. It feels affectionate, but bitterly so, given her current torment.

 

“Um, I’m just, sorry, Mands,” she mumbles , wiping tears away from her face, “I’ll go I was just, I needed somewhere…” she gestures sloppily at the room and suppresses a sob. Emma makes to open her mouth again, but before she can say a word, Mandy is there, in front of her, wrapping her arms around her and just for a moment Emma lets herself fall apart in her arms.

 

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Mandy tells her as she rubs her hand over her back. “It’s okay.” Emma’s body wracks with the last sobs, grateful for the warmth of this woman’s embrace and the comfort it brings her, even if it reminds her of the unattainable.

 

“Mands-” she starts to protest, but the other woman just silences her with another gentle whsiper and a tighter hug.

 

“I’m so, so sorry about Sami, Emma. I know what he meant to you.”

 

Emma cups a hand over her mouth.  _ This isn’t about Sami. This is about  _ you. But she can’t tell Mandy that, and she certainly can’t show her. Somehow, though, she finds herself spitting out the words.

 

“It’s not… not about him.”

 

Mandy draws back to look at her tenderly.  _ Fuck, fuck,  _ Emma panics silently. She never could stand the look that Mandy is giving her now; gentle and kind and deep and so  _ beautiful _ .

 

“I… don’t think I can…” she trails off awkwardly, biting her lip.

 

“You can tell me anything. You know that, Em.”

 

Mandy is staring down so confidently, so unknowingly alluring and the words are out Emma’s mouth before she has a chance to even think about what she’s saying.

 

“I love you,” she blurts, then gasps and cups her hand over her mouth again, doing anything but look at Mandy, because she cannot take rejection - not now.

 

“Oh god, shit! I’m sorry, shit Mandy!” Emma groans and shuts her eyes. She feels a hand cup her cheek and her eyes shoot open again and then just like that Mandy is dipping towards her and her lips are pressed against Emma’s and her mouth is opening and her heart is bursting with shock and love, she finally feels  _ loved. _

 

“Mands,” she gasps when her friend pulls back. No. Not her friend. Her lover? Perhaps. Mandy is looking at her with more than a tinge of nerves; Emma reaches out and clasps her wrist before she can even  _ think  _ of leaving, and then Mandy cups the back of her neck and draws her in closer and she can taste her breath and she was right, it does taste faintly of apples, and chocolate cake, and Emma laughs.

 

“What’s so funny?”

 

“Chocolate cake,” she answers. “You have a bad habit, Mandy Carter.”

 

“That’s only one of them,” she quips, returning for a third kiss, tongues meeting. “Did that help?” she asks when they’ve finally parted.

 

“Help? You've bloody well made me the happiest I’ve been since Sami died, and… perhaps even before.”

 

“I love you too, Emma Keane,” is the response she gets, and then Mandy brushes a thumb across her cheek and disappears out the door, but not before she smiles in the darkness and Emma thinks that finally, things might be alright.

  
  
  
  



End file.
